


What's Expected Of You

by sourcedecay



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Coming of Age, F/F, Lesbian Tonks, Self-Acceptance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-12-26 12:15:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18282212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sourcedecay/pseuds/sourcedecay
Summary: She doesn’t remember when it started. It’s just that sort of thing that has always been there, well before she knew what it was or what it meant. So, throughout her childhood, Nymphadora Tonks simply felt different, and that wasn’t always a good thing to be.(A coming-of-age story for lesbian Tonks)





	What's Expected Of You

She doesn’t remember when it started. It’s just that sort of thing that has always been there, well before she knew what it was or what it meant. So, throughout her childhood, Nymphadora Tonks simply felt different. Of course, she always assumed that it was due to her metamorphmagi, because that meant that she _was_ different, and that wasn’t always a good thing to be.

 

Looking back, the signs were definitely there. For example, when Tonks (“Nymphadora”) was five and spent the family’s stay in France holding hands with a slightly older girl with beautiful brown eyes. Or maybe when she was nine or ten and boys were inherently gross, so gross that she had to wipe her hand clean on something if it accidentally brushed against one of them in the doorway or on the playground of the Muggle school she attended. Or, related to that fact, when she didn’t know how to say no to the boy wanting to “go out” with her and spent two days avoiding him, until he finally sent her a note stating _“I am breaking up with you”_. She felt nothing but relief.

 

She really should have known during her third year at Hogwarts, when Eileen Walsh cuts her hair into a bob and Tonks keeps fantasising about situations that would have her kissing Eileen. And then Eileen goes to Hogsmeade with Ryan from Gryffindor and Tonks cries later that night when she hears that they had kissed, and everything just feels wrong. Of course, if someone had asked Tonks would have said that this feeling of wrongness came from her friend being taken away, while Tonks was alone and uninterested in boys and unable to understand where the crushing guilt and shame she felt came from. So, when Eileen takes her shirt off in their dormitory she definitely does not look, and when the other girls talks about boys they liked she makes sure to be a part of the conversation, because sooner or later she will like a boy for real. Right? 

 

Of course, Tonks knows that gay people exist. It is in the newspaper every now and then, the occasional hate crime or, more often, some scandalous story about some famous person who has been caught kissing someone of the same gender. The whispers about how “people like that” shouldn’t be allowed in the dormitories or in the lockerrooms, the hushed jokes about “girls with short hair who played Quidditch” aimed at Madam Hooch, laughter and the uncomfortableness aimed at anyone who dares taking the slightest step outside of the acceptable gender norms or who even hints at something, maybe. But in all this, Tonks doesn’t actually know anyone who is gay. It is almost this exotic, distant thing that couldn’t possibly apply to her. So, she denies that possibility and repressed any feelings that she might have had or not have had.

 

It works. Or at least, Tonks thinks so. For a couple of years, she barely thinks about it at all. At the end of third year, upon being asked which boy she likes, she slips up and says the first thing that comes to mind: _I don’t like boys_. She realises the implications a few moments later, when the entire room has gone very quiet and very still. _”Oh, no, not like that, I just don’t like any boys here!”_ And then she mentions the attractiveness of a certain male Quidditch player. Her friends do not buy it.

 

She’s 15 when the realisation finally hits her. _I am probably gay._ (It will take her another year to be able to call herself a lesbian for the first time.) Of course, she can’t be _sure_ , really, so she keeps it to herself, and although she feels so incredibly relieved, so _right_ for the first time, a part of her hopes that she’s wrong. Because if not, what kind of life is she going to have?

 

The first time she tells someone is at the end of sixth year. Alice is a Ravenclaw and has lots of freckles, and Tonks is just a little bit in love with her. They’re taking the same N.E.W.T.s and are walking home from Hogsmeade together, Alice talking about how she wants a boyfriend, and then Tonks just says it. _I like girls._ And Alice just smiles at her and doesn’t stop sharing sweets or leaning against Tonks’ shoulder when she’s tired in class, and everything is okay.

 

She’s tried all sorts of different hair colours throughout her Hogwarts years but none of them have felt right. She buzzes her hair during the summer after sixth year, using her dad’s clippers in front of the bathroom mirror because it’s therapeutic to see the hair fall off. She wears it brown and then pink, trying to show people that _look, I’m everything you don’t want me to be, and I’m everything I want me to be_. She goes to a show with a group of friends and as they are walking home at 3 am, Alice holds her hand.  
She’s 18 and hasn’t kissed anyone, because even if girls experiment or practice kissing they don’t do it with someone they think is a lesbian. So she leaves Hogwarts and moves to London, because she wants to be an Auror and because small towns are so incredibly suffocating. She finds herself nervously walking around Soho and then, finally finding the confidence to walk into a gay bar. 

 

Her first girlfriend is a Muggle and wears leather boots and denim jackets and absentmindedly runs her hair through Tonks’ buzzcut and amazes over its colour. They go out sometimes, most often to explicitly gay spaces, and stay in more often, and Tonks breaks up with her when she has to lie about her education and work more often than she can tell the truth.

 

She joins the Order and is instantly drawn to Remus, as if they have an immediate understanding of one another. Soon enough, she finds out why and finds herself on dates with Remus’ lesbian or bisexual friends for the remainder of the year, until she meets Alison and the set-ups stop. Alison is also a member of the Order and has a cat and Tonks finds herself slowly but surely moving into her flat. They eat breakfast together and sit close together, even at Order meetings, and Tonks finds herself happy and content and for the first time not minding being different.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. English isn't my first language and I am not a good writer in the first place so sorry about that
> 
> 2\. I am a lesbian and have struggled a lot with that - several of the situations mentioned in this fic are my own experiences and I wrote this to cope with crushing loneliness lol (we're gonna be okay though! let's go lesbians!)
> 
> 3\. Tonks is a lesbian and no, I do not accept feedback. (gotta count on JKR to take two incredibly gay-coded characters and make them date each other. I won't accept it)
> 
> 4\. Comments are very much appreciated! I will even attempt to reply to them! (but please be nice I'm very fragile)


End file.
